The Intermapping Lab understands itself as an open initiative to foster
the idea of the Commons. This is supported by linking to the Mapping as
a Commons manifesto, while building heavily on Free and Open Source
Culture and Software.

Additionally, there is a (currently invite only) side channel in the
Matrix ecosystem, acccessible under #intermapping:matrix.org, plus a
series of private email messages at the fringe. Most documentation is
kept in a public Hackpad at

[Sorry Jon, but email works better for me too, especially when it comes
to write a longer text with attachments…]

For me the mode of conversation is a political decision, especially
since we are building infrastructures. It is tideous to converse via
email, as content (=conversation) is not openly available on the web and
gets drowned deep in private the mailboxes. Lucky those who use GMail
and expect everyone else to have the same feasability available. Also
Thunderbird get’s a little whacky after more than 10.000 messages.

For me the question is: Do Commoners want to profit from federated
infrastructures, and acknowledge certain draw-backs in comparision with
commercial products, or do they rather want to impose an unmeetable
pressure on the FLOSS scene to keep up with multi-billion dollar companies?
We’ve seen this argument before in our conversation:

we need to get you aboard these federated infrastructures, else we
don’t manage to bridge experience from activism circles and the libre
movement in both directions: why would a coder engage for solidarity
aspirations, if activists in return don’t break their expectations
(about how a system should work), too?

To answer these ambiguities, I have set up the Intermapping category on
the TransforMap Discourse to accept emails also from anonymous users at

From my experience choosing communication channels is a political decision which decides highly about who is part of a discourse and who cannot be. Closed tools also produce closed circles, creating an imbalance of knowledge, thus power. How can Commoners justify working outside of the public?

this is not a political decision at this point; I’ve asked twice on Riot
before I switched back to e-mail - basically because I was desperate and
went on travelling, i.e. offline. I’ve answered to you in a private
message (yes) in German, Jon. Don’t wanna make this a huge discussion
now, sorry.

Let’s discuss inFlorence and right now pls. focus on the preps - would
you mind drafting a REMINDER letter for the participants who don’t even
have their tickets in hand, it seems? Or checking the arrival and
departure times? Or prepare the first input for the deep dive from the
conveners or perhaps react to one of the messages about funding?